Olga Morachevskaya. On Women's Tournaments and Championships (1931)
Another article about women's chess, written two years after Alexandra Klimenko. Olga Morachevskaya (1906-1973) was a three-time Moscow champion and shared 2nd-3rd places at the 5th Soviet Women's Chess Championship in 1938. In 1945, she played a test game against the U.S. women's champion Gisela Gresser before the famous USSR - USA radio match.
This article appeared in the 64: Shakhmaty v Rabochem Klube newspaper, #4, 1931 (the issue was fully dedicated to women's chess).
On Women's Tournaments and Championships
Last year, the issue of women's tournaments and championships was one of the topics discussed in the press. In this article, I would like to state my views on the subject.
I think that women's tournaments do not benefit their participants and do not help them increase their quality of play. The first downside of such tournaments is that, despite the large number of them (trade union championships, city championships, all-Union championships, etc.), women play against the same opponents over and over again. We already know each other quite well, all the strength and weaknesses of our opponents, and so, our playing in such tournaments is mostly based on subjective moments. In each game, we're adapting our own game to the playing of our opponents.
Another downside of women's tournaments is that the strength of participants can vary too greatly. Since these tournaments provide a champion's title, everyone is trying to win, to score points at all costs. The participants of such tournaments deliberately choose incorrect combinations and traps to perplex their partners, throw them out of balance - or, on the contrary, play too passively, waiting for the opponent's mistake. It's clear that such playing can only harm the players' development. A stronger player is only concerned with winning (or defending) her "championess" title.
And she needs to hold on to that title if she wants to play in other, stronger tournaments, if she wants to take part in the intercity team matchess or in the Soviet Championship.
I think that we should do away with this system: there are enough men's tournaments of various categories, which readily accept women, and playing in such tournaments - both due to more uniform playing level and more diverse line-ups - is much more beneficial for women than playing in women-only competitions. When playing against equal or stronger opponents, the women will approach their preparation much more seriously. An unknown opponent whom she hadn't seen or studied yet will make the player more objective and less reliant on the subjective moments that we discussed earlier.
In one of the articles published, I think, in Shakhmatniy Listok, a woman player complained that women do not play in the "men's championships" and tournaments due to "hostility" from other players. I think that this statement is erroneous: in my own experience, and in the experience of other woman players I spoke too, we were always readily accepted into "men's" tournaments, even into tournaments with higher category than ours. If some hostility towards woman players does exist somewhere, this is an exception that should be eradicated. More often, I see another problem: beginner girls and women hesitate to play in "men's" tournaments - perhaps they're too shy and uncertain in their abilities? For such "shy" women, we should organize training woman-only tournaments before getting them to play with men.
Currently, due to longer working hours at the factories and other facilities, the players more often no-show their tournament games. This is natural, but why don't we switch our attention from championships to other types of tournaments, less stressful, but no less beneficial for woman players? I think that we should hold more mixed training tournaments. These tournaments require less energy, and no-shows are taken much more lightly. Meanwhile, it's precisely these types of tournaments that benefit our playing quality the most. I advise all woman players to play in stronger tournaments more often, not fearing losses and last places.
Another good method of engaging more women into chess would be intergender team matches between women and men. It's much easier to find some time for such a competition than for a long, important tournament. Of course, men's teams shouldn't be too strong, because it would discourage beginner women. The Moscow women's team is a good example of getting progressively good results, because we have much energy and good guidance. Also, to increase the playing quality, it's necessary to hold regular lectures, game analyses, etc. - but this, as far as I understand, is a concern for men's chess as well. In my opinion, the only necessary form of women-only tournament is the Soviet Championships. But I think that they should be reorganized too. By the current system, mostly city and trade-union champions are getting invited. But this caused the Soviet Championships to be mostly contested between the Moscow and Leningrad women, because the provincial players "feared" to take part in them. I think that it would be reasonable to devise a new formula for the Soviet Women's Championships: to hold two simultaneous women's tournaments - one for the 2nd and stronger 3rd-category players, and the other for the weaker 3rd and 4th-categury players.
The first tournament will consist of 10-12 players, mostly from Moscow and Leningrad. Occasionally, every 2 or 3 years, it wouldn't hurt for us to meet each other to check our progress and achievements. In the Soviet Championship, it's necessary not just to "defeat" your opponent: you have to outplay her, and play well, because these games are watched by the best Soviet chess players, our best games get into print, and the public determines the overall level of woman chess players by these publications.
The arguments for holding another parallel tournament for the 3rd and 4th-categury players, I think, are quite simple and convincing.
Most provincial players have 3rd or 4th category, and getting them to play on the national level is a direct responsibility of our chess organizations. These players hesitate to accept invitations to the Soviet Championships with strong line-ups, but they would surely be glad to play against opponents of roughly equal strength. There's a lot of 3rd and 4th-category female players in the Soviet Union, and their contests must be very interesting, showing the true strength of the provincial players.
If we divide the Soviet Women's Championships into categories, instead of inviting all the champions and nobody else, woman players will be encouraged to play in men's tournaments more often (basically, men's tournaments are the only way to get a category), and most women-only championships and tournaments would become redundant. I ask the woman chess players from Kharkov, Rostov, Kyiv and other cities to respond and state their opinions on the issues I touched upon.
Note from translator. I looked through other issues of the newspaper, but haven't found any follow-up for the Morachevskaya article. However, six "provincial" players took part in the 1931 Soviet Women's Championship semi-finals: Zinchenko (Rostov-on-Don), Vapner (Saratov), Afanasieva (Baku), Daibo (Sverdlovsk), Bauman (Nizhny Novgorod), and Muzalevskaya (Kaluga), probably encouraged by Morachevskaya.
After the women's championship, the opinions varied. Nikolai Krylenko optimistically said, "The current championship showed us that we have 20 strong woman players already, not 8, like at the last championship. And how many are there we don't know about yet? I think we can say that the time of separate women's tournament is passing. Perhaps this will be the last women-only championship."
The view of Golz, the author of the championship article, was much less rosy.
"What conclusions can we draw from this tournament? First of all - the obvious strength of Moscow players. The most likely explanation is that the Moscow women often play in men's tournaments and in intergender matches with men.
Secondly - the overall level of women's play still leaves much to be desired. Too many games were decided by blunders and tactical mistakes. So, there's the third conclusion: women's chess don't receive enough attention. This is clearly shown by the number of provincial players, which is far from satisfactory, and their lack of tournament playing skills; the organizational committee also weren't too kind to women - their playing conditions were tougher than men's: 3 games in 2 days, with accelerated playing time - 2 hours for 36 moves.
Let us hope that the lessons of this competition will be learned, and women's chess work will finally receive the attention it needs and deserves."
Note 2. The no-shows mentioned by Morachevskaya became so much of an issue in women's tournaments that they were several short articles complaining about "women's lack of discipline". In one case, the whole Moscow women's team showed up two hours later for a match against men, which led to its cancellation. The Moscow women's championship was also hit by no-shows hard: despite there being 10 participants, "only two or three pairs were ever in the tournament hall for the same time".
